It's safe to say that the end of the world has been a topic of speculation and fascination throughout human history. I would guess that's what makes it such a popular theme in the media. Most often, the post apocalyptic narrative shows up in genres like dystopian fiction, fantasy, and science fiction. Recently, I finished reading a dystopian fiction by Emily St. John Mandel entitled, Station Eleven. Although I don't actively read dystopian fiction, the few that I have read were impressionable, Station Eleven included. Mandel's story moves back and forth between two worlds, pre and post collapse, wherein a deadly epidemic left the world desolate and uncivilized. Although I enjoy dystopian fiction film and literature, the majority of those I've encountered seem to be set in fictional worlds where whiteness, maleness, and straightness are pre-selected standards. In all fairness, it might come off a bit strange to be constantly pointing out a character's race in literature. So while it shouldn't be exempt from criticism, representation in dystopian fiction film is more of a concrete and direct phenomena. For this reason, I'll be directing my attention to media representation in dystopian fiction film using the more extensive genres of science fiction and fantasy. Admittedly, what got me thinking about the lack of diverse characters in the world of fantasy and science fiction was a sketch from Comedy Central's, Key and Peele. To put it briefly, it's about racist zombies. I'm sure this sounds insignificant and a bit absurd, but it has meaning. Essentially, the sketch uses comedy as a medium to drive a point about the mainstream narratives in our culture and the people who are routinely left out of them. It starts out like any other zombie apocalypse, with two men racing to escape assault and infection. However, contrary to the usual zombie hostility, it's as if the men are invisible; and in a satirical turn of events, the zombies won't bite them. In a way, White Zombies is playing on the fact that people of color have been virtually deleted from the narrative of science fiction in our culture. While it works out for the best in the video, in reality, the lack of diversity in Sci-fi is a huge issue. In fact, data on the top 100 grossing science fiction and fantasy films from The Open Book's findings in 2014 revealed that this genre has a severe bias toward placing white, straight men in prominent roles (the blog post is super interesting, click here to view it). As demonstrated in the image below, there is a clear shortage of diverse characters in science fiction and fantasy. The fact that there were zero protagonists played by women of color and LGBT actors is beyond disappointing. What's more, out of the eight movies featuring black male protagonists, six of those roles were played by the same actor. Lastly, it was recorded that women as a whole occupied only twelve percent of the protagonist roles while people with a disability portrayed as little as two.
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